A Marked Copy
W. Carl Ketcherside
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It is not an unusual thing for me to receive marked copies of papers and bulletins from brethren who feel they would like to have me read something of special interest. Thus I was not much surprised to receive a mimeographed copy of a letter sent out by a preacher to his congregation to warn the saints of the grave danger involved in reading after certain men. The marked portion read as follows:
Perhaps the most controversial figure on our list is Carl Ketcherside, of St. Louis, Missouri. He is a prodigious writer and even some of the faithful brethren have been captivated by his style and have grown soft toward such errors as instrumental music and premillennialism. While Ketcherside does not personally endorse these things, or institutionalism, he persistently works with those who favor them and steadfastly refuses to disfellowship them. If this man is not somehow stopped he has the ability to completely undermine the church as we have known it. In his talk about fresh insights he writes as if he had a new revelation or commandment which the rest of us have not received.
At one time in my life this kind of thing would have disturbed me. I would have thought about the people who would read it and form prejudiced opinions without ever having met me or even read a single word I had written. But that was before I really came to know Jesus as a genuine personal friend. Ever since I invited him in and he came, not just as a passing acquaintance but as an abiding Presence to sup with me, and me with him, all that has changed.
It is easy now to look back and see that I once reacted just as our brother who wrote me up. I was fearful and frightened and factional, and I attacked those who did not conform to our party program to prove that I was sound and solid on "the issues." I remember how proud I was when I was introduced at our factional conclaves as "an outstanding defender of the truth,"--the truth being our party line and factional creed, of course.
I still have a long way to go in measuring up to the Father's expectation for one of his children, and I've got a lot of weak spots that trouble me, but I think that the biggest relief I have ever experienced comes from a realization that I no longer have to prove everything. It's a tremendous thing to realize that it is a fact that Jesus lives in you, and you can just accept it and go on your way rejoicing. No conscious effort is demanded to prove it to anyone else. If it is true it doesn't make any difference if anyone else knows it or not. If it isn't true it wouldn't make any difference if everyone thought it was.
As a result of his moving in when I opened the door, I can now read what brethren write about me a lot more objectively than before. So I study what they say to see what good I can derive from it. Obviously we cannot learn a great deal from those who agree with us, and the more they agree with us the less we can learn from them. Since we are all finite and fallible, we need the criticism of others to help us eliminate our errors. In one sense our enemies are the best friends we have.
In analyzing the warning of our brother, I think he over-estimated my ability and influence. It is true that I write a great deal, although not nearly as much as I would like to write. I have to practice a great deal of restraint in that area. I doubt that my style is captivating. I never studied journalism and I do not have the educational background for proficiency in this discipline. I just get full up on the inside, and when I do I simply have to share my views with others, but I'm never satisfied with what I've written after I see it in print.
Perhaps I am getting credit I do not deserve for articulating ideas whose time has come. Anyone else who said the same things would be in my position, although he could probably do a much better job of staling them clearly. Our brethren were all moving toward a change in attitude. I just came along at the right
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I must plead guilty to the charge of refusing to create tests of union and communion out of our variant views about the things that trouble us. It isn't because I've grown soft or spiritually flabby about error. I've just had my sense of values straightened out by reversal. I've learned that Jesus died for people, not for systems, methods, or legal codes. As he put it, "Man was not made for the sabbath, but the sabbath was made for man." if I use my interpretation of the millennium or music to destroy my brother for whom Christ died, or to justify my treating him like an outcast and an alien, I think more of my views than I do of God's children.
Since I share in the abiding Presence it isn't necessary for me to play God and exercise censorious judgmental attitudes toward others who are caught up in the same human predicament as myself. I will go anywhere and share with any of my brethren just like Jesus came and shared with me. He didn't wait until I was good, and right about everything, or we would still be living apart. I find it much more satisfying now that I do not have to be infallible. It was always a hard task for me as I'm sure it is for the pope.
Really I don't think that anyone will stop me. I anticipate that senility or death will do so, and I hope the last one beats the first one to it. And I am not at all disturbed that what we write about factionalism and fellowship will upset "the church as we have known it." It needs to be undermined, although as openly as I try to work, I doubt that is the proper term. Perhaps instead of being undermined it will be overwhelmed by the Spirit. That would make a difference!
"The church as we have known it" is quite sectarian and inadequate. It is not really the body of Christ but an institutional image which we have created and animated. It moves when the right strings are pulled, and in the midst of a lot of dead wooden images it fools a lot of us into thinking that it is alive. Satan has hoodwinked us into thinking that those who attack this ponderous structure are battling against the soma (body) of Christ which is enlivened by the pneuma (Spirit). This does not follow. The two are not identical.
I think we need a radical change in our whole approach to the problems of a sorry, sick and sinful world. And the first change that must be made is in "the church as we have known it." We must return to the community of saints as God wants it. It will be a costly process. Most of us will not pay the price and will die defending our sects under the delusion that we are preserving the one body. Our lives, our money, and our hopes are all invested in our monastic structures. To surrender these would be like having to hate our own lives to take up the cross and follow him. That's the last thing most of us will ever do.
I have a deep sense of compassion for my attacking brother. He spends much of his time fighting what he brands as "institutionalism." He thinks that because his faction does not congregationally support some of the projects, promotions and programs which have been dreamed up and drummed up to coax the world into the "Church of Christ" camp, it thereby constitutes the "faithful church."
But what he calls "the loyal church" with its unlovely attitude and unbrotherly posture is a human institution much worse than what he opposes. This will sound like blasphemy in his ears because he equates his faction with "the Lord's church." But these things need to be said much as we regret the situation which gives rise to the need. I only pray that all of our good brethren will take an unbiased look at the multitude of rabid sects we have spawned under the guise that each is "the Lord's church."
I simply could not resist smiling at my brother's words to the effect that I
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I recall how we used to protest and bluster that we loved everybody, even our brothers in error. But we were hypocritical and dishonest. We were uneasy when those from another faction came around our meetings. We'd get a little clump of the loyal ones together and hold a caucus, and take a quick poll on whether we would call on one of them to lead in prayer. We had goose pimples for fear someone would take word back to our "spiritual Jerusalem" that we were eating with the uncircumcised.
When Jesus came in at my invitation, he swept such sham and pretence out of my poor shriveled and sinful heart. He made me realize that what I had regarded as fidelity to him was nothing but partisan pride. So I gave in and let him begin to love through me. Great new vistas were opened up. The scales fell from my eyes. My horizons were pushed back and for the first time I found myself able to love my enemies and pray for them. I mean really love them instead of feigning and fabricating. When I quit lying about loving all of my brethren and my enemies and got rid of the gangrenous guilt that was eating at my heart because of such pious fraud as the party designates faithfulness, life took on new dimensions.
Don't think that I'm free from all of my littleness and bigotry and intolerance. I am not purged from all prejudice and I know it better than anyone else. It's pretty hard for one who was raised in slavery all of his life to act like a free man all of the time. The temptation to hate and to let the flesh take over is still there.
I often have to hold a conversation with Jesus about it and apologize to him for barging in ahead of him and generally messing up my life by trying to handle things on my own like I used to do. I must be very trying to him. But at least I have gotten to the point where I can be thankful that brethren who think I am dangerous can write it up and get it out in the open so I can pray for them. And if that is being dangerous, brace yourself, for I have just started!